27 February 2013

that moment the clash comes on the radio and instantly, you are eleven years old all over again. when you were just beginning to figure music out. and before you worried about things like taxes and cancer. yes, that moment.

25 February 2013

sunday, february the seventeenth (or, one week ago yesterday): an impromptu road trip, to astoria (where the thrifts have always been good to me), my favorite girl in the world, an excellent sign, a few instant relatives, mandatory hotel bed-jumping, street 14 coffee, two loungers, one seriously rad lego guy, one spectacular wall of books, one swooping/crying seagull, one favorite secret hideaway.

21 February 2013

I did not actually get to stay here. at the color hotel, akathe saguaro. but back in october, while I was teaching at oasis at the ace, I snuck down one morning and spent a few hours wandering the grounds. because I knew I'd need this dose of color in february, I just knew it. and if you are battling any variation of the cold grey forever, I bet you need it too.

12 February 2013

my favorite childhood polaroid picture sits in the bottom of a box somewhere. I do not actually need to take it out and look at it to remember. the details are forever forged in my mind. it's a polaroid my mom took right after she surprised a ten year-old me with a redecorated bedroom. in it, I'm sitting on my bed, which has been freshly repainted, the old comforter replaced with a brand new cream-colored satin one. there are fresh, frilly new curtains on the windows, a cornflower blue bedside table (covered with flowers hand-painted by my mother) and a frosty new glass lamp. plucked right off the pages of the JCpenny catalog, I believe. in the picture, I'm sitting on that bed and I'm beaming. it's a moment I revisit again and again. because it was a room that made me feel special, a room that felt authentically mine. I knew then there was a very specific art to the planning and making of a space. that there was love in it, so much love. in all the details, love. what I didn't know was just how much it would affect me later on in life. how much it would influence me, both as an artist and a mother.

and so this is the subject of my most recent piece in issue sixteen of uppercase magazine: my mom and the home she (artfully) made for her family. it was not an easy piece to write, friends. but I'm glad I did it, I'm glad I pushed through. it was the least I could do, the very least.

and I wish you could read it, mom. I really really do. because this one's for you.